Vanuatu parliament puls

leaders under scrutiny

By Patrick Declovtre

For the first time, a contro versial leadership code, passed in early June by Vanuatu’s parliament, sets clear guidelines and punishes corrupt leaders.

The code defines the leaders’ duties and identifies breaches of a leadership code of conduct, such as corruption, conflict of interest, bribery.

It also compels persons defined as leaders under the Constitution (Head of State, prime ministers and cabinet ministers, MPs and other public ser vants) to file an annual declaration of assets and liabilities to Parliament.

It would enable the Vanuatu police, public prosecutor and ombudsman to prosecute.

Those found guilty could face fines of up to two million vatu (U 5515,600) or jail sentence of up to ten years.

The bill will effectively enhance the powers of controversial French born ombudsman Marie-Noelle Patterson who, for the past three years, has published numerous reports accusing Vanuatu’s top leaders of cor ruption. abuse of power or misman agement.

The alleged scams went from the issuing of US$lO million in “bank guarantees” to sale of Vanuatu pass ports to Asians or the recently aborted transfer of the state’s assets to a Mauritius-based trust company.

On January 12, riots broke out in Port Vila when angry contributors demanded their savings back from the Vanuatu National Provident Fund

(Vnpf).

They had read another ombudsman

report saying prominent politicians had used the VNPF's money to buy themselves houses.

“Fci' k the leadership code, but there was no consequences of the wrongdoing. If then ’ happened. Now it’s going to put more pressure on leaders”.

After a change of government last March, most of those targeted by Patterson are now in the opposition.

"I think this is 100 much because this can ruin the career of a leader.

The higher we are. the most damaging it is to our reputation. Only one day or even one hour of jail would be enough to deter anyone from doing wrong,” opposition MP Vincent Boulekone told Parliament. He labelled the bill a diktat.

Deputy opposition leader Barak Sope stressed, “ten years jaii is against human rights. And this can also affect our custom (traditional) chiefs, who are also leaders and whose titles are hereditary.”

"In Britain, they cannot prosecute the Queen or Prince Charles because it’s against their custom and tradi tion". he added during heated parlia ment debates.

As soon as three years ago, Patterson’s office drafted a leadership code with the help of Papua New Guinea’s ombudsman office. It was tabled four times in previous parlia ments. and always withdrawn from “Then former PM Serge Vohor last year ordered a new bill to be drafted.

Now it s quite different”, Patterson said.

The code, passed by 32 votes of the 52-seat House, is one of the corner

stones of a Comprehensive Reform Programme (CRP) launched last year and co-ordinated by Asian Development Bank.

The CRP promotes principles of good governance, transparency and

accountability in the leadership

while “rightsizing” the 4,500-strong public service and promoting a private sector-driven growth.

“No leader in the world likes that sort of checks and balances. They know very well it’s about transparen cy, answerability, behaving in accor dance with leadership code. This code is not new, it’s been in the constitution since Vanuatu’s independence in 1980. But like anywhere else, leaders don’t like to be answerable”, Patterson says.

The original bill, which was more hard-hitting with provisions for the setting up of a leadership tribunal, had to be watered down to allow for easi er passage.

The code is not retroactive: it will only be enforced on misdeeds to come, not those already denounced by Patterson.

“It's the only way MPs could accept this. All past breaches are not covered. So it gives them a chance to start anew. In some ways, it's like an amnesty, but only for leadership code breaches. For penal cases, they still can be prosecuted”.

“Biit most of the points are cov ered, I’m pretty happy with this new draft. We’ve been waiting for so long”.

“The ombudsman’s position was once referred to as “Mr Soon”, I’d say that project could be called a similar name”, Patterson said. ■